| If
a kitchen designer is 'doing his job properly', he'll - and
it is normally a he - have a good idea of how much money
you want to spend.
If he knows
how much money you want to spend, then he'll know how he can adapt
the design with a view to arriving near to your budget. By adapting,
everything that he's doing is increasing his chance of a sale.
He'll
know when to tell you no - when to advise on changing your initial
plans to something that might just be more 'beneficial'.
Often kitchen
companies will vary their offer on appliances due to suppliers.
This means that depending upon what products might be available;
the most cost efficient method of kitchen design might change.
For instance, if the kitchen company has received some discounted
integrated laundry drying machines from its appliance supplier,
then this could feasibly mean from the designer's perspective
the prospect of an appliance costing less than a cupboard! Sounds
absolutely crazy, I know… but it happens. This means that
designers who are dealing with potential customers who already
require such an appliance have an easier job.
However, this
of course doesn't happen very often. It is therefore imperative
for a designer to always have a positive and a negative reason
in the back of his mind for a customer to have / not to have a
particular part of their kitchen. For example, double ovens in
a tall oven-housing unit are great for families with small children
- they reduce the danger of burns by not being located at a lower
level. They are however more expensive - especially when you include
the tall oven-housing unit, with a cupboard at the base as well
as the top. The flip side of the argument from the designer's
perspective is two-fold...
A designer
might say "Tall oven-housings look great in a showroom
- in reality in most kitchens they're not practical. They're too
imposing, casting shadows - also when you have a separate hob
you're loosing too much worktop - there simply isn't enough food
preparation space."
The
reality is that the designer thinks that the customer can't afford
it. In this instance, the designer is therefore trying to sell
the customer something he thinks he can afford.
In terms of
appliances, there are also other examples of positives and negatives
that a designer is able to influence customers with. If there
are no reasonably priced integrated washing machines that the
kitchen company can supply, a designer might tell the customer
"If you're thinking of selling the house at some point
in the future, then most people are now looking for the washing
machine to be out of the kitchen - it reduces the noise &
it's more saleable to say 'with laundry room'".
The designer
might then give the same reason to have a dishwasher - that even
if it's not wanted by the customer, when it's time to sell the
house, it'll sell much more quickly because it has that particular
integrated appliance. Again, the reality is that the designer
only wants to sell the dishwasher because it happens to be cheaper
than the more useful cupboard.
There are
many ways for a designer to be a cost-cutter. Another way is to
forget about symmetry. It's always generally good practice to
'match' the wall units with the base units.
If a base
unit, which is 500mm (20 inches) wide has a matching wall unit
of the same width directly above it, then the kitchen generally
looks more professional as well as being more efficient.
A
kitchen can however also be planned with the lowest cost-per-storage-space
in mind -
To achieve
this, a designer will only utilise the largest possible cabinets
- and the largest possible covering of filler panels! For instance,
when encountering an 800mm (32 inch) wall space, unscrupulous
kitchen designers might place a 600mm (24 inch) wall cabinet in
the centre with two 100mm (4 inch) filler panels either side.
Whilst doing so, the designer would probably mark 'FP' next to
the filler panel. This would indicate to the kitchen company that
the filler has been discussed with the customer when it probably
hasn't. There is one other method of secretly saving money that
a kitchen designer uses...
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